The share of closed opportunities that are won: won ÷ (won + lost), over the same period. Deals still open stay out of it.
In practice
Win rate is the simplest number in sales-assisted selling, and the easiest to inflate without meaning to. The formula fits on one line, but each of its terms hides a decision: what counts as an opportunity, what counts as lost, and the period you count over. A deal that died three months ago and was never marked lost stays out of the denominator, and the rate goes up. A "no decision" filed separately does the same. And an upsell to an existing customer has no place in a rate that measures winning new business. So win rate is never read alone: with the number of closed deals beside it, to know what one point weighs, and with the lead-to-opportunity rate upstream, because stricter qualification at the entrance mechanically lifts the rate at the exit.
The formula
Win rate = new-customer opportunities won ÷ new-customer opportunities closed (won + lost), over the same period
- Won
Contracts signed with a new customer during the period. Renewals and upsells are counted elsewhere: they measure keeping and growing a customer, not winning one, and mixing them in flatters the number.
- Closed
Won plus lost, and only those. An opportunity still open is neither a loss nor a win yet: it waits for the period in which it closes. Dividing by every opportunity created instead is the most common error, and it mixes a flow with an outcome.
- Lost
Every closed deal that did not sign, "no decision" and silences included. A deal that stopped moving months ago and was never closed out is a loss nobody recorded, and each one of them lifts the rate.
Also called close rate. Some tools call it a "conversion rate" and divide by every opportunity created: the same words then describe another number, lower and slower to move. Check the denominator before comparing two figures.
Worked example
18 signatures, and the denominator that decides what they mean
- A B2B software company, June to August: 130 new-customer opportunities created, 75 closed — 18 won, 57 lost. The two counts do not cover the same deals: some of the 75 were opened before June, and many of the 130 are still open.
- Win rate = 18 ÷ 75 = 24%. Divided by the 130 created instead, it would read 14% — a number that mixes this quarter's new pipeline with the deals that happened to finish in it.
- On 75 closed deals, one deal more or less moves the rate by about 1.3 points (100 ÷ 75). Going from 24% to 25% is one signature, not a trend.
- The team's target is 32%. On the same 75 deals, 32% would have signed 24 (75 × 0.32), six more a quarter. At an annual contract value of €24,000, that is 6 × €2,000 = €12,000 of new monthly recurring revenue per quarter, about €4,000 a month.
A win rate is only as honest as its denominator. Write down what counts as closed, count the silent deals as lost, and publish the number of closed deals next to the rate: at 75 deals a quarter, a point weighs less than one customer.
Orders of magnitude
- Published win-rate tables are plentiful and hard to use: most come from vendor surveys, on populations, deal sizes and definitions of "closed" that are rarely stated. A figure divided by opportunities created and one divided by opportunities closed can be ten points apart on the same pipeline, as the example shows.
- The rate moves with deal size and with how strictly opportunities are qualified. A team that opens an opportunity at the first call and a team that waits for a confirmed budget are not measuring the same thing, and neither of them is wrong.
- The comparison worth making is your own rate, quarter after quarter, with the same definition and the number of closed deals beside it. At 75 deals a quarter, one deal is 1.3 points: a change of one or two points is one or two signatures, not a trend.
How to improve it
- Close out the dead deals. Set a rule — no activity for a fixed number of days means lost — and apply it before every count. The rate will drop the first time, and it will finally be true.
- Record a reason for every loss, from a short closed list, and read them each quarter. Price, timing, a competitor and "no decision" call for four different fixes, and a win rate without reasons cannot say which one applies.
- Qualify earlier rather than push harder at the end. A deal that was weak when it was opened costs less sales time to drop at qualification than to lose after the proposal.
- Split it by segment and by source. A blended rate over small and large deals, or over inbound and referred opportunities, describes none of them — and the segments are where a decision can act.
In the Tour
Has your pricing model been tested, not just chosen?
- Yes, tested against alternatives20 pts
- Chosen with some reasoning, not tested7 pts
- Picked arbitrarily0 pts
The Tour asks whether your pricing has been tested rather than just chosen — 20 points for tested against alternatives, 7 for chosen with some reasoning, 0 for picked arbitrarily. It does not ask for a win rate, but in a sales-assisted business this is where the answer lives: every proposal is a price put in front of a buyer, and every loss with a written reason says whether that price held. A team that tracks its win rate and its loss reasons quarter after quarter is running a pricing test, whether it planned one or not; a team with neither has only the price it picked.
Questions people ask
How do you calculate win rate?
Take the new-customer opportunities that closed in the period, won or lost, and divide the won ones by all of them. 18 won out of 75 closed is 24%. Open deals stay out until they close, and dead ones go in as lost.
What is a good win rate?
No figure travels between companies, because the rate depends on deal size and on how strictly an opportunity is qualified before it is opened. The useful question is whether yours moves from one quarter to the next with the definition held constant, and what the loss reasons say when it does.
Win rate or close rate: is there a difference?
Usually none in the words, often one in the denominator. Most teams divide by closed deals, some by every opportunity created, a few by every lead. Say which, because on the same pipeline the first two can be ten points apart.
Should renewals and upsells count?
Not in this rate. They measure keeping and growing a customer, not winning one, and the renewal rate and net revenue retention already follow them. Mixed in, they lift the win rate in quarters heavy in renewals and hide how new business is really doing.